A Guinea Pig Rescue Center Uses AI To Name Their Adorable Fluffballs

Neural networks are good at a lot of things. The technology is used in a variety of contexts, from finance to self-driving cars. But naming little balls of fluff? That's definitely new and brilliant.

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When Janelle Shane, an electrical engineer from UC San Diego- received an unusual Email from the Portland Guinea Pig Rescue center asking: “Have you ever trained a neural network to generate guinea pig names’?, she decided to take on the challenge

via TNW
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The rescue center gave Shane a list of classic guinea pig names – which turns out to be monikers like “Snickers” and “Rascal” – and the list of every guinea pig the center had ever rescued.

via TNW
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Using this data set of examples, Shane set to work creating a neural network based on Andrej Karpathy’s char-rnn opened-sourced code.

via TNW

The AI uses the letter combinations of the over 600 names she was given and then trains itself to generate more names
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Here are some of the AI’s best names for the furry critters:

via TNW

Buzzberry and After Pie.
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Fleury White and Stargoon
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via TNW

Hangerden
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via TNW

Popchop & Fuzzable
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via TNW

Bless & Bat

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A Guinea Pig Rescue Center Uses AI To Name Their Adorable Fluffballs

When Janelle Shane, an electrical engineer from UC San Diego- received an unusual Email from the Portland Guinea Pig Rescue center asking: “Have you ever trained a neural network to generate guinea pig names’?, she decided to take on the challenge

The rescue center gave Shane a list of classic guinea pig names – which turns out to be monikers like “Snickers” and “Rascal” – and the list of every guinea pig the center had ever rescued.

Using this data set of examples, Shane set to work creating a neural network based on Andrej Karpathy’s char-rnn opened-sourced code.

Here are some of the AI’s best names for the furry critters:

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